Saturday, August 13, 2005

Another Saturday night and all I got is some random stuff n'junk, nothing heavy.

I'm considering writing a Wikipedia entry for the DC series Thriller. Why the hell not? There are worse callings than to be a Thriller expert!

I have indeed written my V For Vendetta piece, but it will debut at Cmic Book Galaxy on Monday, or so I'm told. Look for it here on Tuesday.

Today, I won an auction for this CD. Those who know me well will be mildly surprised, but I have been known to listen to this artist upon occasion, and after hearing two songs from it, I liked them a lot as well as the album cover art (fie upon downloading!), so I decided I had to have it.

I also went to the Bowling Green Library today, to return and/or re-check out this book, which I had checked out because one, I hadn't read it, and two, they didn't have this book, which was the one I was interested in when I first went in two weeks ago. But lo and behold, they had it today- so did I return the former? Nah- I checked 'em BOTH out, and I hope I'll have time to make a dent in 'em. These days, things are so hectic with me that it makes me sleepy to try and get wrapped up in a good long novel, which is why my reading is slacking these days.

I've also been listening a lot to a CD I've had for a few years now, Me'Shell Ndegeocello's Bitter. It took me a while to really get the gist of that album; it's a low-key, glum, jazzy exercise that finds her dwelling on a lot of negative feelings- jealousy, bitterness, betrayal- and quite often the strings-percussion-bass-piano-occasional guitar arrangements are so static and placid that if you don't pay attention your mind will wander. But if you do, and it took a couple of late-night listens driving home from work, you'll be rewarded with a minor-key masterpiece. The melodies are strong enough to support the resigned vibe, and it's extremely successful at evoking the moods I'm sure she set out to evoke. It's also got a very nice cover of Jimi Hendrix's "May This Be Love", which features a surging middle-eastern-sounding string accompaniment. Unfortunately, the album was a stiff, sales-wise, no big surprise there, so it's gone unnoticed and she's pretty much reverted to more uptempo jazz-influenced funk since. In all fairness, I've only heard random cuts from the two subsequent releases, so it could be that these cohere better than they seem, but nothing I've heard sounds like Bitter. If you see this one in the discount or used bins (and I've seen more than a few copies), you could do worse than give this a shot if you're looking for something with a late-night/early morning feel.